Nocturnal Revelations
by Delta Knight
Summary: A New York lawyer has a fiery meeting with one of his wealthy clients. On his way back to the office, he sees the speeding yellow car. Written for an assignment in English class back in high school.


Nocturnal Revelations

Many of life's discoveries only come after an event that punctuates a corresponding period of preliminary thought. I realized this truth for myself one night on my way back to my office after meeting with one of my clients.

Mrs. Gertrude Chambers had hired my legal services in the wake of her late husband's passing. "My husband allotted his entire estate to me," she had said, "thus I am the rightful recipient of the millions."

I asked her if I could please see the appropriate documents.

"Regrettably, the Company holds the original record of the sale, but I do have a copy of it, along with the will, handwritten by Matthew himself," she responded.

Reviewing the papers thus presented, I assessed, "You seem to have a valid claim, madam—"

"Why, of course I do; the facts are as clear as a paneless window!" Mrs. Chambers interjected.

I sorely sought to set her straight, to tell her that her demands were to aggressive given the ambiguity of the language. I wanted to convince her that the prosecution could counter nearly every argument that I could draw from the documents with a more convincing rebuttal. Nonetheless, it was to my dismay that Mrs. Chambers was an unhelpfully stubborn woman, and thus I alluded, "What claims has your husband's company advanced?"

"Oh, they say that Matthew signed over the company during his typical work hours, on company grounds, with a company pen…"

Patiently I lent my ear to Mrs. Chambers as she rattled off an imposing list of circumstantial cords that bound Matthew Chambers' one hundred and twenty-eight million dollars, which another company had paid Mr. Chambers for the purchase of his company, to the same company that he sold in the transaction. When Mrs. Chambers had exhausted herself (though she certainly wasn't finished!) I inquired further, "What time did Mr. Chambers sign the contract?"

"Nine P. M. sharp."

"Does the company require him to be working so late?"

"Not officially, but I hadn't a chance to dine with him but once or twice a year."

I asked her where Mr. Chambers was when he signed the contract.

"In this house—which he paid for with a Company loan."

"What pen did he sign the contract with?"

At this Mrs. Chambers rose and left the room. Soon she returned, carrying a navy blue pen with an elegant gold trim and inscription. Seeing the pen, I requested that she let me read the writing on the pen. Mrs. Chambers then held up the pen in front of my eyes; the golden lettering announced: "The Chambers Publishing Company."

Distraught at the mounting evidence against the case Mrs. Chambers hired me to argue, I maintained my composure with some difficulty.

"Mrs. Chambers," I began, "I am well aware that you feel entitled to the millions, and I will, to the best of my ability, do whatever is necessary to win this case. Notwithstanding, I feel obliged to ask your opinion on a relevant matter: When your husband signed the contract, do you believe irrevocably that your husband signed the contract as Mr. Matthew Chambers, husband to Mrs. Gertrude Chambers, rather than as President Matthew Chambers of the Chambers Publishing Company?"

Mrs. Chambers stood and abruptly exclaimed, "What do you know about it?"

"Nothing at all," I hastily replied. "That's why I'm asking you, because I'm certain that you would know better than anyone."

Mrs. Chambers, still standing, stared straight into my eyes for almost a minute, then she slowly sat in her chair across from me, fuming, though silently. No matter how precise my elocution, how lucid my benign intent, I had audaciously exposed that Mrs. Chambers did not even know her own husband of fifty-one years. By subtly proclaiming Mrs. Chambers' unutterable burden, cross she became with me. Doubtlessly she sought to chastise my transgression before I reminded her that she had hired my counsel to help win an inheritance suit in court, and that I was merely conducting the services she had commissioned me to fulfill.

Exhaling audibly through her nose, Mrs. Chambers oozed angrily, "That may be so, but I think we've concluded our business for today. I shall see you tomorrow."

"Very well," I said, and I bade her good night. Donning my hat and cloak, I left.

While driving west from the Chambers estate back to my law firm's offices downtown, I thought about the peculiar triangle that bound Mrs. Chambers, Mr. Chambers, and the Chambers Publishing Company. From the day Mr. and Mrs. Chambers wed, it seems that Mr. Chambers' true nuptial was to his work—and the wealth he could earn from it. Working from before dawn to after dark, Mr. Chambers had no time left for his wife and their one child. Perhaps aware that his heart was failing, Mr. Chambers, having already sold his life to his company, sold his company to his competitor, in a last effort to—what, exactly? To prove that he could still exert his individuality, even in the shadow of death? Wealth seems to tamper with the mind.

I drove further, pensively reflecting, when a yellow car passed me on my left at perhaps four-thirds of the speed at which I drove. When I drove around the bend a mile or so down the road, I saw a congregation of policemen and private citizens focused on a bundle of blankets on the ground—a corpse, no doubt. A large, well-dressed, athletic-seeming man was angrily talking to a policeman. I knew that the carnage must have resulted from dangerously fast automobile. I parked my own car and approached the policeman to offer my account.

"It was a yellow car. Big yellow car," I described, adding, "New."

The policemen then asked me, "See the accident?"

I replied, "No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster than forty. Going fifty, sixty."

"Come here and let's have your name," said the policeman.

"Isaac W. Reynolds," I replied accordingly.

As the policeman and I exchanged questions and answers, I overheard the raucous exchange between the large, well-dressed man and another, shorter man. The deceased victim of the car accident was the wife of the shorter man, but the larger man, though married, had been having an affair with her. The large man also seemed unnaturally, even guiltily eager to assert that the yellow car wasn't his.

When the policeman moved on to another witness, I returned to my car and continued my drive back to the office. In all my years on the bar, I don't believe I've ever had such a profound realization as the night I discovered that excessive wealth breeds deadly sin.


End file.
